Julie Klinger

Many human activities exceed the planetary scale, yet all are inescapably grounded in specific places and times. Whether we are discussing the energy transition, space exploration, warfare, or disaster recovery, these activities rely on hardware positioned on Earth or in space. Hardware is comprised of minerals, metals, and materials wrested from the Earth and transformed by human labor and their automated proxies. It would seem, then, that nearly all large-scale problems, and therefore nearly all solutions, rest on an extractive imperative. Yet the extractive imperative exacerbates many of the same problems it is invoked to solve. This apparent dilemma shapes the way diverse publics imagine and enact possible futures from within the current polycrises as they unfold across local and extra-planetary scales. It is therefore increasingly urgent to reconceptualize these sectorally—and often politically—distinct activities as materially linked in their shared and often conflicting needs for CRM; to connect these activities to labor, land use, and infrastructural regimes fundamental to their realization; and to interrogate the potential futures engendered by these regimes. Toward these ends, and as part of a substantial writing and public engagement project centered at the IWM, Julie Michelle Klinger will conduct archival research, site visits, and interviews in Austria and greater Europe during the fellowship term.